Blair Denies Britain Fudged Reports

June 5, 2003|By Warren Hoge The New York Times

LONDON — Prime Minister Tony Blair told a boisterous session of the House of Commons on Wednesday that charges that the government distorted intelligence reports to exaggerate the threat of weapons of mass destruction and justify war in Iraq were false. He said a parliamentary committee would investigate the matter and make public its findings.

The announcement of the new inquiry by the joint Commons and House of Lords Intelligence and Security Committee, which will parallel one by the House's foreign affairs panel, did not silence repeated calls on Blair by legislators to authorize an independent judicial investigation entirely free of the government's control.

The joint panel has access to all intelligence, but it reports to the prime minister rather than to the Commons, takes its evidence behind closed doors and censors its reports before publishing them.

The dispute over the presentation of intelligence evidence is a serious one for Blair, who regularly appeals for public trust but whose government has continually been accused of spinning information in its favor. This past week, the two members of his Cabinet who resigned over the war, Robin Cook and Clare Short, both suggested that the government misled the country about the reasons behind the war.

"These allegations are not going to go away," said Iain Duncan Smith, leader of the opposition Conservatives. "The truth is that nobody believes a word now that the prime minister is saying."

At issue is a BBC report that Downing Street intervened in the preparation of a crucial intelligence dossier in September to highlight a claim that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes. The citation was put forward at a time when the government was working to persuade the then-dubious British public of the need for prompt action against Iraq.